Hidden Gems: Meet Scott Church of The EUP Sports Den

Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott Church.

Hi Scott, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I moved to the Sault in 1998 and went to work for the local newspaper (The Sault Evening News) I worked there for 10 years, and it was my dream job. I had the opportunity to cover a wide range of sporting events and write about them. I went through a divorce after 10 years of working at the newspaper and that changed things a lot for me. I realized that the wage I was making was not enough to support me and my three kids so I had to leave the paper and go to work at Kinross Correctional Facility. The pay was much better, but it wasn’t the job that I loved.

Rob Roos was my sports editor at the paper and we quickly developed a good friendship. We did things together outside of work, and shared a lot of common interests, including sports. Rob taught me everything I knew about writing sports. I had a passion for it, didn’t have any experience doing it. Rob let me learn through writing, and instead of constantly correcting me, he let me figure things out for myself.

I continued to do stringer work for the paper throughout my career at the prison and Rob and I remained close even though we no longer worked together.

Rob had some health issues related to his heart so when he called me one day and told me that he had some health news, I figured it was about that. It turned out to be much worse. He had lung cancer. Rob never smoked a day in his life and was always in reasonably good health, so this was a shock. He started to forget things and asked me one day at the end of July how he was doing in our fantasy football league. At this point I was really concerned. The cancer was obviously affecting more than his lungs.

I told him that I’d fill in for him until he was back on his feet because at the time, I really believed that it was just going to be a bump in the road for him and that he’d be back.

Rob passed away in the fall of 2022. The cancer had metastasized and had begun running a layup line through his body. It was infuriating to me how fast it took everything from him. He went from the hospital one week to long-term care the next week, and then he was gone. I never got the chance to say a proper good-bye to him as the last time I got to visit him was when he was completely looped up on painkillers because the cancer was so out of control.

I had my own battle with cancer in 2013-14 but that’s another story for another time.

The company that ran the paper at this point was the latest in a string of owners that bought and sold local newspapers. I had been stringing for them while Rob was out and they paid me $50 per game to cover and provide a photo for local teams.

After a period of time, I approached them about hiring me for the sports editor’s job at the paper and they said they were interested but needed to wait for approval at the corporate level. They strung me along for nearly a year before telling me that they simply weren’t going to hire anybody to replace Rob. They were going to use a writer out of Grand Rapids to simply gather information and write up brief game summaries. I was mad upon hearing this news. My wife might tell you I was more than mad, but that’s the story I’m sticking with. How is someone from almost 400 miles away going to do justice to our local sports scene? I was mad that instead of just hiring me to do the job, they’d rather not have the job done at all.

At this point, I thought about something that Rob and I always used to talk about when we worked together. What if we were able to start our own publication and run it the way we wanted to?

This became the EUP Sports Den.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road. Money is tight everywhere and local businesses struggle as it is without being asked for sponsorship money. Also, we are a small operation. There’s me, my tech guy Dave, and my wife Kelly, our photographer. All of us have full-time jobs that we work so adding this project to that makes for a lot of nights of concession stand dinners, lonely dogs, and household tasks that get pushed back to a day when there’s not a game.

And living in the Sault, there is one school that’s within five miles of my house, everything else is a minimum of 20 miles away, so it’s not always easy to get to games.

Another struggle is that as a population, the Easter Upper Peninsula is getting smaller and older. School enrollments are shrinking, schools are consolidating programs, and there are plenty of people in our area who can’t get past the idea of holding a newspaper in their hands and smelling the ink.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about The EUP Sports Den?
We are a local high school sports media outlet focusing on the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We cover high school sports events and write articles and take photos for the games that we cover. I think the thing that sets us apart from others is that we simply do it better. Anyone can provide a scoreboard to let people know who won the game. We let people know how the game actually went. We let people know who played well and if there were any odd things that went on during the game. We care about our schools and athletes, not just the score. To pick one thing that I’m most proud of is impossible. I’m proud of the fact that we got this thing going at all. I’m proud of the fact that people take the time to read and listen to our content (We also do a podcast).

I guess the thing I want your readers to know is that we are all about getting our local athletes the recognition that they deserve.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://theeupsportsden.com
• Other: We can be found on instagram, facebook, twitter, and youtube by searching The EUP Sports Den